Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island: three day tour to see the coast

October 28, 2016

We have booked a three day-two night cruise on Halong Bay. In our opinion some things are better (and certainly easier) done by taking a tour. And it's nice to have some more time off the bikes.

Day one after being picked-up at our hotel we are driven about four hours to the harbor at Halong City. Along the way we read the signs and review what we remember from 2007...Ga is chicken, Bo is beef, bun is thin rice noodles, pho is flat rice noodles, and nha nghi is guesthouse.

Arriving at the harbor, we are shuttled onto a tender to take us to the cruise boat as leaving passengers are shuttled to the bus. The boat only holds 18 passengers which is great and there is a nice international group of people. We have a nice time visiting and sharing meals with Simon and Mary, a Scottish couple and a lady from Norway. Most of the other passengers are younger. Two gals from Israel have glasses with a camera and are filming for a reality TV show at home. The food on board is great and the presentation impressive for example a garnish of a tomato cut to look like swans. We sail the Halong Bay waters, visit a large cave in the limestone karst mountains and late afternoon into a two person sea-kayak to paddle around the karsts.

Day two takes us on a hike up to a viewpoint where we can see over Halong Bay. Next we are dropped off at Cat Ba Island where we take a hike up to another mountain top, then spend the night at a hotel in Cat Ba town. The food included here was not that terrific. We walked around the town, it's much bigger than expected. We find the the section of the harbor where the Nuoc mam, fish sauce is made. Not sure if we saw or smelled the area first. Nuoc mam is made of small fish layer with salt in containers, weighted to keep the fish submerged in their juices and in a hot place for a year to ferment. The first extraction is a dark brown, extra virgin sauce for table use. The second extraction is salted and used for cooking.

Day three takes us back to our boat and cruise back to Halong town harbor. On board there are only five of us now, and we have one of the quickest cooking classes ever. We essentially only put together our spring rolls from the plates of stuffing items already prepared, very tasty. When back at the harbor, we wait for the bus to drive us back to Hanoi. We meet Jonathan again, a backpacker from Portland we met at our guesthouse, he went on a different tour going first to Sapa. The efficiency of how the various tours are run is very impressive, boats and buses are coordinated to accommodate the different tours. Some only one day on boat, one day on boat and one night on Cat Ba island, or on the beach in bungalows.

On the drive back to Hanoi, the traffic is heavy, the road has no shoulder and it's not very scenic...we are happy to not have cycled this. After dinner, we wander around the streets and see the night market.

Tomorrow we will do our final organization before setting off cycling north to Ba Be National Park.

Our cabin on board the Fanta Sea 3. We have a double bed, AC and a bathroom with hot shower.

The harbor at Halong City is bustling with boats taking on new passengers and setting out for the offshore islands.

There are 1969 islands in Halong Bay. Big ones and small ones.

Arrived at one of the stop-overs in Halong Bay. We are certainly not the only cruise boat.

We are anchored for the night in a cove with a view between two islands.

Cruise boats on Halong Bay. This view is from the top of Ti-Top island.

Forested karst mountains in Cat Ba island.

Cat Ba town. We take a walk around the fishing island.

View over Halong Bay from Canon Point high above Ca -Ba town.

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